“I am passionate about Rapid Induct.”

– Joel Abuyen, Safety and Environment Manager at Fulton Hogan

Fulton Hogan is a large company in the construction industry separated into two divisions: Fulton Hogan Construction and Fulton Hogan Infrastructure. They are spread over approximately 100 sites and currently operate in a number of countries, including New Zealand (their country of origin), Australia and across Southeast Asia. They have almost 7,000 employees, plus additional contractors. They are engaged in a wide variety of construction activities such as creating roads, airports, laying asphalt, mining and much more. Recently they have also begun working in the utilities industry, working to install the NBN, contracting to SA Water and installing aeronautical ground lighting.

Before accessing a plant, all personnel attending Fulton Hogan sites are required to do an induction that is up-to-date, especially given the changing nature of construction sites. However, prior to using Rapid Global, inducting each person was an extremely time-consuming and costly process. In addition to this, contractors entering site are required to have certain documentation, inductions, insurances and licenses. With so many employees, obtaining each of these documents was impractical due to difficulty keeping track of them and lack of a centralised storage location. Thus, an online, central repository was needed to keep all documentation in a location easy to access by authorised Fulton Hogan personnel.

“Rapid Induct came about when we had to do inductions for our employees on project sites. I found it extremely difficult with them having to come to site and do the induction. It was a lot of my time wasted, as well as theirs, doing face-to face inductions. For example, at Brisbane airport I probably have 130-140 people arriving any given night, so imagine having to induct all of those people in one hit! It just blows my mind. So a colleague got me to look into Rapid Induct and since then we have been using Rapid for projects.”

– Joel Abuyen, Safety and Environment Manager at Fulton Hogan

Furthermore, site access needed to be controlled at a number of sites to ensure people were working legal hours and could not get on sites they were unauthorised to access.

THE SOLUTION

Rapid Induct and Rapid Contractor Management were implemented as measures to considerably speed up the induction process and thus save time and money for the company. With the superior systems implemented, staff at Fulton Hogan are now able to focus on what matters: getting out in the field and getting on with the job. Contractors are responsible for ensuring they complete their registration and assigned induction prior to arriving on site, and are sent reminders if they have not yet completed their course/s. Meanwhile, for administrators of contracting companies, the system will determine and advise them of the types of documents they are required to submit based on their level of operation. They are also sent reminders of when their documentation is set to expire, so they can log on and upload the relevant updated information. Once these documents have been uploaded, they are verified by Fulton Hogan to ensure all the correct details are present.

Rapid Access was also installed as a solution for Fulton Hogan’s requirement for people to sign in and out at project sites. They now have 3 terminals located at some of their more permanent sites, which record the activity of people. This is particularly helpful at sensitive sites such as airports or defence bases, where security is paramount. In the event of an emergency occurring, the Rapid Access app can inform all personnel via text or email, prompt them to evacuate and advise them of the meeting place.

“Anyone on the projects team uses the Rapid Access terminals to sign-in and sign-out. It is worthwhile for us to have that, because let’s say we are at an airport or defence base for example, then we need to know who is and who isn’t there. Then when you hit the button in an emergency it will actually send you a text message or even an email to say ‘this is an emergency: do a roll call’. A lot of our clients like that.”

THE RESULTS

“The cost saving for me is doing inductions for the whole project team. If you look at an average of 3 hours doing the induction daily, you’re looking at about $200 or $300 a day, then 6 days a week: that’s $1800 a week – and that’s just of my time, when that time could have been used being out there in the field. Now for every individual, once we’ve verified the documents and printed out the cards, they’ll be done within 5 minutes.”

Joel Abuyen, the Safety and Environment Manager at Fulton Hogan, described Rapid Global as ‘bridging the gap around administration’, thus helping the company manage ‘the administrative nightmare of trying to manage a project’.

Rapid Access also helps managers like Joel maintain transparency with their workers to ensure they are not working overtime. The legal maximum their employees can work is 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. With the swipe-card access system feature of Rapid Access, contractor entry and exit times are automatically and accurately documented and saved online. Management get a daily report of personnel site attendance, which also shows details of the visit. That means if any legal or company requirements are breached, then this can be promptly followed up by staff and prevented from reoccurring. This is also helpful in terms of Fulton Hogan’s fatigue-management system, which aims to ensure their contractors are well-rested, safe and able to function at their optimum while working on site.

Fulton Hogan plan to expand and continue to diversify their range of projects and capabilities. Rapid Global solutions will help them in this endeavour by continuing to supply state-of-the-art technology and products to streamline processes as much as possible.